It took three games, but Rick Barnes believes Tennessee basketball missed Lamonte Turner for the first time this season on Tuesday night against Georgia Tech.

But he might not have to feel that way again when UT next takes the court: The junior guard could make his regular-season debut against Louisville next Wednesday at the NIT Season Tip-Off in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“I do think he will be ready in New York,” Barnes said. “That has been our timetable pretty much. These next couple days will be important for him to get his wind back and in playing shape. We are going to need him to do that.”

Turner, has not played in a regular-season game this season, with Barnes saying Turner continues to rehab an offseason shoulder procedure.

Last year's SEC co-sixth man of the year stood on the baseline as the No. 5 Vols (3-0) warmed up Tuesday night prior to their 66-53 win against Georgia Tech. He has done that the past three games after he played 15 minutes in UT’s exhibition against Tusculum on Oct. 31.

From right, Tennessee’s Grant Williams (2), Jordan Bowden (23), and Kyle Alexander (11) react to a foul call against Williams during the game against Georgia Tech on Wednesday, November 14, 2018. Saul Young/News Sentinel

“I would think he probably irritated it more in practice,” Barnes said. “Lamonte is a gym rat, so he is in there all the time. It got where he just couldn’t pick it and it was affecting the way he shot the ball and affecting the way he passed the ball. It affected him where he was avoiding contact when he was trying to screen."

“He is a competitor and for him to say that he can’t go, believe me, he can’t go. He is that kind of person that he will never not play if he could.”

Turner averaged 10.9 points per game and tied for the team lead in 3-point shooting at 39.5 percent last season.

Barnes said he is proud of his team for getting through its first three games without Turner, but Tuesday was the one the 6-foot-1 guard likely would have impacted the most. Tennessee used an eight-man rotation and had some foul trouble with Yves Pons and Grant Williams.

“We needed that third scorer tonight,” Barnes said. “We definitely needed that. Grant and Admiral (Schofield), they were struggling. We know that he is a guy that can create some offense.”

Instead, Turner was sitting in the middle of the Tennessee bench for the third straight game with what Barnes has described as tendinitis.

But he could move to the middle of it all for Tennessee next week, when the Vols play two games in Brooklyn over the Thanksgiving holiday.

“I think the biggest thing, he wants to get healthy,” Barnes said. “I think that’s the biggest thing. We want him to be healthy. I think he’s certainly has, in the last couple weeks, done all he can do to rehab it and get it back. I do think that he wants to.

“We need him. There’s no doubt. We know that. He is a very integral part of this team.”